ENG: Honey and ash. And a whole range of tastes and flavors from different parts of the music world between them. In fact, every song on the album (and there are as many as 16) is unique in its own way and another album could easily be constructed around each of them in one particular style. Gothic, pop, industrial, neoclassical, even a little bit of dance music – you may find all of this here, I tell you that. However I have to mention that this stylistic topsy-turvy doesn’t particularly disrupt the reception of the album and my treating it as a cohesive whole.

For some time, Miel Noir was a side project of Dimo Dimov, known mainly from Svarrogh. For the occasion of “Honey & Ash” he was joined by Marcel P. (Sagittarius and Fahl which will be presented on Santa Sangre soon). The duo is supported by a few guests – Gerhard Halstatt of Allerseelen among others. The whole team has created quite an explosive mix, in fact I could dedicate a separate review for each song on “Honey & Ash”. Let’s take the three opening pieces: “Honig Das Opfer” reminds me of Allerseelen, though Gerhard didn’t have his finger in this pie. It is rhythmic, it is catchy, simply cool. “Sonnenman” has something of New Wave magic, and “Honigblut” could easily be found on Die Weisse Rose’s “Martyrium …” , but on the tip of my tongue I can also feel the burning delight the Green Fairy.

Imagine that’s just the opening three songs. This gives you an idea of what is happening throughout the whole release. I must admit that with so many songs and such stylistic diversity, not all of the songs on “Honey & Ash” coincide with my taste on an equal measure. On the other hand I can’t say that I found some particularly poor fragments. However, despite the album being sometimes more dynamic, sometimes more lyrical, sometimes classical, sometimes modern… a specific cold and decadent atmosphere emanates from it. That is certainly partly due to the sound, very clean, but at the same time almost always treated with reverb – a kind of cold wave reverb if you know what I mean. The vocals are also following this pattern – not that this hard German dialect dominates here, just that in most of the songs the vocals are somehow dispassionate, or at least I perceive them as such. But above all, it is the ability to find a common denominator in this musical cauldron, and the fact that this denominator is cold and damp like an old basement… It just makes me happier.

Each piece bears the appropriate graphics, Claudia Summerer being their creator. In almost all of them the theme of honey is present, and besides that, decadence, war, love and mystery… I don’t speak German, so I cannot grasp the concept of “Honey & Ash”. But I probably won’t be making a mistake if I say that it’s kept in rather bittersweet tones.

Perhaps a word about my favorite parts of the disc: oldschool-industrial, quite overwhelming, “Unspoken Words” stands out for sure, and following right after it “Black Waves Rising”, where charming guitar melancholy is balanced by electronic dirt. Be aware though that it’s an “as many people who devote their time to listen to it, as many opinions” kind of album.

This is an ambitious project, especially taking in mind that, excluding the occasional guests, only two guys are responsible for it. I’d like to see how they manage live on the stage one day. Maybe someday this opportunity will come along, but for now I can at least try to imagine their efforts while listening to “Honey & Ash”.